I’m just starting to work with motors under computer control, and I had begun with the basic L293D shields. While the chips can support 600 mA, they were too hot to touch running at half their rating. I decided that the L298 boards were probably still not good enough, since my expected continuous power needs will be ~9V at ~600-700 mA. I settled on the MC33926 because 3A should be plenty, and 12A was overkill.
I really like the design of the board, with clading to draw heat from the chips! The motor direction LEDs have been surprisingly more useful than I expected! I’m also getting better efficiency with the MC33926 than I did with the L293D, resulting in lower current for the speeds that I want, and the chips run barely warmer than ambient temperature (which will make packaging much easier, since I won’t need a fan!). I’ll certainly recommend the board to others.
The only drawback so far was a code-collission somehow with the LiquidCrystal library. When I added the LCD code, the motors only went one way. (If I was trying to set a negative number for speed, it was still only running forward at the set speed. And, when the negative numbers were sent to the display, the output got really wonky until the numbers were all positive again). Stripping the LCD code from my sketch set things right with the motors.
I’m going to try moving to an Arduino Mega R3, so I can put the LCD on its own port. Since the motor controller is going to work just fine for the project, I’ve realized that I’ll need more inputs anyway, and I may as well get the I/O with the Mega straightened out.